My Head is a Haunted House | Sadie Coles HQ
It’s not quite Hallowe’en, but there are plenty of anticipation-building creepy thrills to be had at this show , curated by writer, curator and horror movie obsessive Charlie Fox.
Everywhere you look, there’s work blurring the lines between scary, funny and… a bit deviant. From Sam McKinnis’ reverent paintings of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to a pink laser show from Matt Copson, to some truly disgusting - even by his standards - Larry Clark photos. Maybe the most spectacular, though, is Marianna Simnett’s plushy sculpture of a hyena in breeches getting it from behind from a swan in an evening dress.
Source: Marianna Simnett
Slightly embarrassingly, this is the second time in a month that I’ve featured some kind of artwork featuring a) cuddly toys and b) penetration. I couldn’t help mentioning Simnett’s effort, given it was the most spectacular (and photographed) thing at the show. She’s one to watch: her Instagram is great too !
There’s another old Artangled friend on show, Alex da Corte, in a spooky video featuring the artist dressed as Frankenstein, mashing up his supper food in various inventive ways.
Credit to the curator for making it all hang together. I guess one factor is because he’s tapping into universal emotions. As Fox says: “When I was a weird little kid in suburbia obsessed with horror of all kinds, my grandfather (who isn’t alive anymore) built me a haunted house. I could pretend I was a ghost or a bat or a werewolf crying blood over a cardboard tombstone.
“It was a make-believe world where my imagination could get deranged and it was magic. My Head is a Haunted House grew out of that hallucinogenic memory and its psychic hold on me.”
My Head is a Haunted House is at Sadie Coles HQ (London). June 15 - August 21 2019